Perspectives on the beautiful game of soccer; fueled by enormous amounts of coffee

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Schedule coming soon

The U.S.-Mexico game is behind us now and we (MLS fans) can start to turn our attention back on our league. There won't be any games today but today is nevertheless a big day. MLS will release the schedule for the 2008 season.Off the top of my head, here are some of the games to be played at HDC that I'm most looking forward to.- Chicago Fire vs. LA Galaxy - I've had this game circled on my calendar since the Fire visited Chivas USA last season- Chicago Fire vs Chivas USA - A Blanco double dose and one of Chivas' few guaranteed sellouts- Chivas USA vs LA Galaxy - Four times is too many for this rivalry. I'd love to see just two of these games a year, so the electricity and anticipation builds up. Still, the games should be good.- Red Bulls vs Chivas/Galaxy - Jozy! Angel!- Houston vs Chivas USA - These matchups are always good. Let's hope it comes earlier in the year than last season, when Houston closed out the year here.- DC vs LA Galaxy - Last year's league matchup stunk but the SuperLiga was a memorable one. It'll be strange to see DC visit without Christian Gomez pulling the strings.Anyway, there is always one thing I look forward to when the schedule is released. I always hope that MLS does not overload the schedule when the US national team plays. Now, friendlies can fall out at any time and if MLS games are already slated to be played, there's not much that can be done. But in November I posted this itemabout CONCACAF's World Cup qualifying schedule.

To refresh everyone's memory, these are the dates for World Cup qualifying slated for this year:

Sunday, June 15Wednesday, Aug. 20Saturday, Sept. 6Wednesday, Sept. 10Saturday, Oct. 11Wednesday, Oct. 15Wednesday, Nov. 19(There's one more fixture date sometime in June, US at Barbados/Dominica, not sure if that's been finalized)So let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that the dates don't conflict with MLS games.My guess is that they will have a full weekend of games on all the Saturday/Sunday fixture dates. Let's hope MLS proves me wrong.